Griffin

Golden Cup depicting Griffin on top band. Excavated at Marlik,
Gilan, Iran. First half of first millenium BC. National Museum of
Iran.

The griffin (also spelled gryphon and, less commonly, gryphen,
griffon, griffen, or gryphin) is a legendary creature with the
body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. Often,
griffins are depicted with a pair of prominent ears,
traditionally termed "ass's ears". Since the lion was considered
the "King of the Beasts" and the eagle the "King of the Air", the
griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic
creature. Some traditions say that only female griffins have
wings. The griffin is generally represented with four legs, wings
and a beak, with eagle-like talons in place of a lion's forelegs
and equine ears jutting from its skull. Some writers describe the
tail as a serpent. See the entry European dragon for a 19th
century painting of St George and the dragon, showing a dragon
very like a classically-conceived griffin.

Classical and heraldic griffins are male and female. A
so-called "male" griffin, called a keythong in a single 15th
century English heraldic manuscript, is an anomaly that belongs
strictly to a late phase of English heraldry: see below.

Nature of griffins

Tales of griffins and the Arimaspi of distant Scythia near the
cave of Boreas, the North Wind (Geskleithron) were elaborated in
the lost archaic poem of Aristeas of Proconnesus, Arimaspea, and
eagerly reported by Herodotus and in Pliny's Natural History. The
griffin was said to build a nest, like an eagle. Instead of eggs,
it lays agates. The animal was supposed to watch over gold mines
and hidden treasures, and to be the enemy of the horse. The
incredibly rare offspring of griffin and horse would be called
hippogriff. Griffin was consecrated to the Sun; and ancient
painters represented the chariot of the Sun as drawn by griffins.
The griffin was a common feature of "animal style" Scythian gold;
it was said to inhabit the Scythia steppes that reached from the
modern Ukraine to central Asia; there gold and precious stones
were abundant; and when strangers approached to gather the
stones, the creatures would leap on them and tear them to pieces.
The Scythians used giant petrified bones found in this area as
proof of the existence of griffins and to keep outsiders away
from the gold and precious stones. It has recently been suggested
that these "griffin bones" were actually dinosaur fossils, which
are common in this part of the world.

Heraldic guardian griffin at Kasteel de Haar,
Netherlands

Adrienne Mayor, a classical folklorist, has made tentative
connections, in Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman
Times, between the rich fossil beds around the Mediterranean and
across the steppes to the Gobi Desert and the myths of griffins,
centaurs and archaic giants originating in the classical world.
Mayor draws upon striking similarities that exist between the
Protoceratops skulls of the steppes leading to the Gobi Desert,
and the legends of the gold-hoarding griffin told by nomadic
Scythians of the region; among the artistic evidence, the 6th
century Greek vase on the book's cover is incontrovertible. The
size of that fossil skull may be the source of the claim that a
griffin is eight times the size of a lion.

In Persian mythology, in particular during Achaemenid Persians
Griffins under name Homa was used widely as statues and symbols
in palaces. Homa has also an special place in Persian literature
as a guardian of light.

A modernist, Egyptianized guardian griffin, Washington D.C.A
9th century Irish writer by the name of Stephen Scotus asserted
that griffins were highly monogamous. Not only did they mate for
life, but if one partner died, the other would continue
throughout the rest of its life alone, never to search out for a
new mate. The griffin was thus made an emblem of the Church's
views on remarriage.

The egg-laying habits of the female were first clearly
described by St. Hildegard of Bingen, a German nun author of the
12th century. She outlined how the expectant mother would search
out a cave with a very narrow entrance but plenty of room inside,
sheltered from the elements. Here she would lay her 3 eggs (about
the size of Ostrich eggs), and stand guard over them.

In architectural decoration the griffin is usually represented
as a four-footed beast with wings and the head of a leopard or
tiger with horns, or with the head and beak of an eagle. The
griffin is the symbol of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and you
can see bronze castings of them perched on each corner of the
museum's roof, protecting its collection.

Gryphon illustration by Sir John Tenniel for Lewis
Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

A griffin (spelled "gryphon") is featured in Lewis Carroll's
Alice in Wonderland in which the Queen of Hearts' orders the
gryphon to take Alice to see the Mock Turtle and hear its story.
The original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel depict the gryphon
in an unusually naturalistic style (pictured to the left).

Some large species of Old World vultures are called gryphons,
including the griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), as are some breeds
of dog (griffons).

Heraldic griffins

A heraldic griffin (or
gryphon) has the hind parts (including legs and tail) of a lion,
the upper parts (including feathered neck, wings, claws, and head
with beak) of an eagle and also ears. It is the ears which
distinguish the griffin's head from an eagle's head in heraldry,
which is important because, as well as the full griffin, the
griffin's head is also often found in heraldry and would
otherwise be identical to the head of the eagle.

According to John de Bado Aureo (late fourteenth century)
“A griffin borne in arms signifies that the first to bear
it was a strong pugnacious man in whom were found two distinct
natures and qualities, those of the eagle and the lion”.
This is clearly fanciful, but since the lion and the eagle were
both important charges in heraldry, it is perhaps not surprising
that their hybrid, the griffin, was also a frequent choice. The
symbolism of the lion-eagle combination was also the subject of a
quotation attributed to Chassaneus by Alexander Nisbet in his
System of Heraldry (1722; p 343 of Vol I of the 1816 edn):
"Gryphus significat sapientiam jungendam fortitudini, sed
sapientiam debere praeire, fortitudinem sequi.". This translates
as: “The griffin represents wisdom joined to fortitude, but
wisdom should lead, and fortitude follow".

Modern illustration of a heraldic griffin - coat of arms of
the Griffiths family

Heraldic griffins are usually shown rearing up, facing left,
and standing on one hind leg with the other leg and the claws
raised: this posture is described in the Norman-French language
of heraldry as "segreant", a word uniquely applied to griffins,
and which is the exact equivalent of the description of lions and
other creatures in heraldry as "rampant".

Arms of the City of London flanked by the dragons popularly
referred to as griffins

A heraldic griffin was included as one of the ten Queen's
Beasts sculpted for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953
(following the model of the King’s Beasts at Hampton Court)
and this is now on display at Kew Gardens.

The City of London adopted what are usually described as
griffins as supporters for its coat of arms, and it marks its
boundaries with statues of a single "griffin" carrying the City
coat of arms at each road leading into the City of London.
However, the City of London griffins are, in fact, heraldic
dragons, with scaly bodies and wings, no feathers, and no eagle's
beak.

The "keythong

The heraldic beast called a "keythong" much enjoyed among
members of the Society for Creative Anachronism is claimed to
appear in a single English manuscript of the reign of Edward IV,
a heraldic solipsism. J.R. Planche's Pursuivant of Arms (London
1859) notes, under the badge of the Earl of Ormonde (first
creation) as recorded in a College of Arms manuscript under
Edward IV, the single contemporary reference: "A pair of
keythongs." Planche's footnote: "The word is certainly so
written, and I have never seen it elsewhere.

The figure resembles the Male Griffin, which has no wings, but
rays or spikes of gold proceeding from several parts of his body,
and sometimes with two long straight horns. ­­Vade
Parker's Glossary, under Griffin." (Society of Creative
Anachronism website). At the end of the 20th century the
"keythong" began to be taken up enthusiastically among amateurs
of heraldry.

Griffins in Literature

Cover of The Griffin and the Minor Canon drawn by Maurice
SendakAlice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The Crossroads series by Nick O'Donohoe, including The Magic
and the Healing, Under the Healing Sign, and Healing of
Crossroads. Griffins play a significant role in this series about
veterinary students called upon to help mythological creatures.
Harry Potter's house (i.e. grouping of pupils) at Hogwarts is
called Gryffindor. The Gryffindor house is named after the
Gryffindor founder Godric Gryffindor. "Gryffindor" comes from the
French "Gryffon d'or" or "golden griffin," but, oddly, its coat
of arms is a lion and not a griffin. The Griffin and the Minor
Canon by Frank R Stockton, illustrated by Maurice Sendak (1968)
The Mage Wars Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixen. A
gryphon known as Skandranon is one of the lead characters. Titles
are The Black Gryphon, The White Gryphon and The Silver
Gryphon.